SANKOFA

Credits

Name: SANKOFA

Country: Ghana; USA; Burkina Faso; BRD

Year of publication: 1993

Format: 35 mm

Color: color

Language : OF m. dt. UT

Duration: 125 Minuten

Direction: Gerima, Haile

Screenplay: Gerima, Haile

Camera: Cubano, Augustin

Editing: Gerima, Haile

Actor: Ghanaba, Kofi; Ogunlano, Oyafunmike; Duah, Alexandra; Medley, Nick

Abstract

With this film, Ethiopian Haile Gerima has created a large-scale African-European production with predominantly African-American actors, supported by funding from Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, France, England and Germany. The result is a film about the slave trade that is captivating from start to finish. SANKOFA tells of suppressed crimes committed by white colonists, and of the emergence of the Black diaspora in America. With broad, mesmerising brushstrokes, Gerima draws together the forts of Ghana’s ‘slave coast’ to the coffee and tobacco plantations of the Caribbean, depicting abduction, oppression and rebellion.